There’s still plenty of confusion concerning the way that last week’s Democratic victory will impact our policy in Iraq but there’s no doubt at all about one domestic consequence: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and company will succeed in keeping their campaign promise to raise the minimum wage. Voters in six states provided overwhelming margins for ballot initiatives lifting the lowest hourly wage above $5.15, and national polling shows majorities in excess of 80% favoring a major boost at the federal level. Pelosi has promised an immediate increase from $5.15 to 7.25 – in other words, mandating a 40% instant raise for that 2% of American workers (mostly very young, in entry level jobs) who currently earn the minimum. There’s no discussion, of course, as to how businesses that employ low-wage workers will pay for this increase without firing some of their employees (an inevitable consequence) or sharply raising prices and adding to inflation, or both.

The stampede to raise the minimum wage makes people feel good, righteous and generous—with other people’s money. There’s no way to stop it, unfortunately --- chastened Republicans (including the President) will hardly stand in the way of a wildly popular measure supported by the public by margins of more than four to one.

Nevertheless, it’s important to look at some of the economic realities behind this implacable but idiotic initiative in order to provide some perspective for the next battle to defend common sense.

During the campaign, soon-to-be House Speaker Pelosi declared: “Republicans have never hesitated to cut taxes for the wealthiest few but they have refused to give America’s workers a raise for nearly a decade…. That’s immoral, and Democrats will take our nation in a new direction by raising the minimum wage.” (Insert wild applause here).

There’s so much that’s wrong and dishonest in this slick sloganeering that it’s hard to know where to begin. On the most obnoxious level, the notion that Republicans “have refused to give America’s workers a raise for nearly a decade” is ludicrous on its face. For the 98% of Americans who work above minimum wage, there have been many raises in the last decade; in fact, the median wage earner brought home 4% more in September, 2006 than he did in September, 2005.

Even more significantly, the Pelosi propaganda attempts to suggest that both policy decisions she cites – cutting taxes and raising the minimum wage – involve taking funds from the same pile of money. The GOP position seems “immoral” because they give money to the “wealthiest few” with funds that could otherwise serve to give “America’s workers” a raise.

The stupidity and dishonesty in this notion should appall all fair-mined people, Republican and Democrat alike. Neither cutting taxes nor raising the minimum wage involves the government spending money. The government, after all, doesn’t have its own money. The Feds don’t make money, they simply take money – from taxpayers. A tax cut involves a decision to take less, not to give away more.

And the government does nothing to pay the costs of raising the minimum wage. Private business people, running small or large companies, bear the cost of such an increase, not the government. Pelosi’s attempt to suggest that there’s some connection between cutting taxes and raising the minimum wage makes as much sense as saying, “Hey, I’m upset because my boss isn’t paying more to the low end workers at our company, at the same time that my rich neighbor pays less in taxes.” You may want your neighbor to pay more to the government, while you also want your boss to pay more to his part-time janitors, but the connection between the two desires is non-existent.

In both cases – pushing for tax cuts (across the board, every time) while opposing raises in the minimum wage – Republicans took a stand for principle. What principle? The core conviction to which the GOP must passionately return: that shrinking government is good, while growing government is destructive. Letting people keep more of the money they earn themselves involves shrinking government – and diminishing its interference in our lives. Raising the minimum wage, however, increases the influence of government in our lives – and deserves resistance. If you’ve been paying some workers at the rate of $5.15 an hour and the government instantly inserts itself to demand that you most give them a 40% raise (or else fire them), this constitutes a huge intrusion of federal power in your private affairs.

Resistance may be futile at this point, but the issues behind the debate (as exemplified by Ms. Pelosi’s ditzy demagoguery) require our serious attention, even in a lost cause.